A U.S. Police State?

September 1, 2002

I’ve experienced my share of hassles with incompetent, power-intoxicated
airline screeners. But this experience really frightened me. It heralded
the very real specter of a police state in America, something I would
have thought impossible less than a year ago.

I am a white middle-aged American citizen, so I am used to my person
and luggage being searched while young men named Mohammed and Abdullah
are passed through with a polite smile. That is politically correct, and
I have come to expect it. I have had to take my shoes off to check for
bombs so often that I have seriously considered neglecting foot hygiene
for a week or so prior to flying in order to exact a small measure of
retribution for the inconvenience.

I have observed a wheelchair-bound woman in her eighties being searched
as Mohammed and Abdullah strolled by. I watched a terrified eight or nine
year old black girl separated from her mother to be searched. Mohammed
and Abdullah smiled as they boarded the plane.

None of this prepared me for what I observed at the Atlanta airport this
week. A thirty-something white woman was taken from the boarding line
to be searched. I remarked to the man next to me (in the hearing of an
IQ-impaired federal security guard), “She really looks like a terrorist.”
He joked back to me, “I’m sure she’s a terrorist- just look at her.”

The security guard, full of his own importance and impressed with his
new badge, shouted, “Now I’ll have to arrest her.” I stared at him, incredulous.
“What did you say?” “I’m supposed to arrest her because of what that man
said!” he told me.

“You can’t arrest someone for what someone else said!” I exclaimed. “I
can do anything I want. This is an airport.” This former rent-a-cop, emboldened
by his new status as a federal agent, thought he could trample on the
civil liberties of anyone he pleased. Although he didn’t take any further
action, he obviously enjoyed making the threat.

I must confess that when the concept of federalization of airport security
personnel was first introduced, I came out in favor of it in this column.
I assumed that the often rude, slovenly, under-educated security guards
would be replaced by professional federal agents. In my ignorance, I imagined
well-trained and disciplined retired military, police and intelligence
personnel protecting our citizens.

Not a chance. Exhibiting its usual level of incompetence, the government
made its first mistake by placing airport security under the Department
of Transportation instead of a law enforcement oriented agency. Its second
mistake was to hire the same inept guards that allowed 50% of weapons
and explosives to get by them away from their former private security
firms. Now that they are federal agents, guess what? In recent tests,
50% of weapons and explosives got by them.

But it’s not the incompetence that has me upset today. I’ve come to expect
that from government. Our only hope is that the Arabs will be equally
incompetent, and that our rent-a-cops turned federal agents will accidentally
catch some real terrorists during breaks from harassing innocent citizens.

What has me upset about the incident I described is the potential for
turning our free nation into a police state. There are forces in our government
who are using the tragedy of 9/11 to advance an agenda that is anathema
to most Americans. They want the federal government to have unlimited
power over all of us. If they have their way, we can forget about our
civil liberties.

My wife Ana lived in Cuba for the first eleven years of her life. In
that Communist nation, any citizen with a grudge against a neighbor can
simply tell the authorities that they heard the neighbor speak against
Castro or the government. That’s all it takes in a police state. One citizen
can be arrested on the word of another.

That was the threat that Bubba the security guard presented to the lady
in Atlanta. He stated clearly that he was authorized to arrest her based
on an uncorroborated statement by a bystander. Does that sound like the
start of a police state to you?

While Bubba and his ilk threaten and harass innocent citizens, they are
under orders not to “profile” Arabs or Muslims. I have personally observed
well over 100 people detained for searches at airports since 9/11; not
one of them looked Arabic. Never mind that 100% of the six terrorist attacks
on Americans in recent years have been committed by Arabs or Muslims.
Never mind that not one attack has been committed by a grandmother in
a wheelchair, a nine-year-old black girl, or a middle-aged white man.
We must be politically correct at all costs, even if the cost is another
airliner full of innocents crashing into another skyscraper.